Heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems regulate a number of environmental conditions in homes, offices, factories, warehouses, and vehicles. These HVAC systems may include one or more HVAC units to move, cool, or heat air. A number of thermostats may connect to the HVAC units over a communications network, to provide control to the HVAC units. Updating settings and parameters for each thermostat in distributed HVAC systems presents a number of challenges.